Amity BoE November 2024

001please go ahead I'm done well there's just not enough room people two seats like to call the uh meeting to order Monday November 11 2024 uh I'd like to ask you to stand for the Pledge of Allegiance Pledge aliance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all number three on our agenda approval of the minutes uh Board of Education regular meeting October 28th 2024 to have a motion to approve the minutes please second second uh H uh any corrections comments if not can we call the rle Miss Bradley St Mr Davis yes Miss Iker yes Mr hardword obstain M H abstain Dr kudaan yes m l Dao yes Mr McDon yes Dr Del Aban Mr

002Reed yes M lank yes M Shuster yes motion carries uh moving on pres presentation of athletic financing which is listed on page six uh we have a brief introduction uh in the uh this particular case uh Dr briers and I discussed uh uh handling this uh at a time when we weren't considering action on the budget this has been discussed year after year after year as part of the budget of finding additional sources of financing and uh we felt there would be a better uh uh position to do it at a time when we weren't looking at it from the standpoint of how much money is it going to bring in although that may be part of it at time so we have a presentation here to inform our board and the public uh a

003little bit about uh athletic uh financing the issues uh involving it and we're going to have a presentation tonight we'll have a little bit of a discussion but we will not take any action tonight right and so um just I I did have um some requests uh just broadly as to how we um actually just address athletic uniforms and so I've invited Mr Goodwin here first so he can kind of walk the board through that process again somewhat separate from the regular budgeting and we don't have have enough time for those things and then that will sort of transition us into um Miss Lumis has done a really nice analysis of pay to participate and kind of the current status of that across durby districts and what it would potentially look like in Amity um

004so I'll let Mr Goodwin start us off and then miss Lumis will follow up good evening everybody Mr Goodwin here director of Athletics for both middle schools and the high school so first is uh outfitting Athletics uh the first I'll start with the middle schools uh the majority of our teams are provided with a uniform t-shirt that they keep uh so you know the soccer the track cross country teams volleyball teams they keep their uniforms we do have some uniforms that we do uh collect back and reuse each year basketball it's a um it's a home and away reversible um set that we use and then baseball and softball we just found that it's easier we had uh little sublimated shirts that look like uniforms it's it's nice so that's how we do that uh

005oh I'm sorry and then uh we do have some other purchases in equipment such as balls scorebooks goals Nets bases track implements timing equipment cones Flags standards uh gold cages we have a total of I believe 26 um um Middle School sports might be 27 now with the addition of the middle school wrestling program parents are expected to provide sneakers and cleats bats gloves catcher equipment helmets sticks and headgear so there are costs to parents to participate in athletics in the middle school high schools are provided uniforms that the athletic uh uh Department purchases in an equitable manner we have 31 Varsity Sports we have home and away uniforms and uh in total I estimate at about 3,000 uniforms it could be plus or minus but it's a lot 67 total teams that we offer

006here at the high school including uh Varsity JB and freshman levels as well many teams pass uniforms down so it's been you know the standard you um passed down so that we can get more years out of a uniform uh not just four or five or six years and it reduces overall costs if we had to purchase uh new uniforms for all our levels it would be my budget would be probably double in that area there like I said before that their uniforms are replaced on a rotational basis uh with the length of uniform life in mind some uniforms go a little faster than others uh the general rule of thumb used to be four years but with sublimation which again is a new way of doing uniforms so we don't heat transfer on uniform

007fors anymore so gone long gone if you played in high school and and you had the cracked lettering and it was halfway peeling off and stuff like that we don't have that anymore because a lot of our uniforms are sublimated they start off white and they basically paint the uniform to never specifications I do and that's one of the fun parts of my job is is designing the uniforms um with the coaches and then uh we play an all weather we play in a lot of all weather Fields nowadays so you're not getting grass stains the the the mud and everything like that like you used to so uniforms naturally last a little bit longer um so now we're get we're finding that we're getting closer to six years out of a set of uniforms

008obviously again some uniforms not you know the white ones still yellow a little bit and that kind of stuff but for the most part we've uh We've edged some of those out some of the teams are so traditional and so uh like the baseball team won the state championship last spring the cold uniforms they wore probably about 12 years old they just will not retire those uniforms they refuse to and hey I can't blame them they want another State title in them so um you know that's it's kind of funny but most teams uh we are between that four in six years uh and again we we get total of8 to 10 for uniform uh some teams do we do purchase a new uniform each year so teams like uh the Swim Team all right

009we're not going to going to give we're not going to have kids hand back their swim uh suit and give it to somebody else all right we we purchase a new swimsuit for each swimmer uh both boys and girls and then uh the dance team they have routines they change their routines each year for a new competition so we purchase their uh Jazz uh sometimes they do hip-hop so we do we get their uh uniforms for that um and so those are a couple of the examples of teams that get uniforms each year um again a lot of this uh uniforms also have to comply with nfhs the national Federation of high State High School Association rules so if they change the rules uh I'll give you an example uh we had uh volleyball I'm

010not even kidding you we we got our uniforms we're out there the official comes over to me and says your numbers are a half inch too low o they changed the rule and I said really like you can see that from here you know so it it gets that intricate sometimes in some sports other sports aren't don't have as many rules soccer switched from uh whites being home to to the dark uniforms being home that way teams could do things like pink days and other uh color days and not um you know mess up who you know who can see who um and that kind of stuff um we used to purchase a lot of times used to be full top and bottoms for uniforms and we've gone away with that from some sports we

011only purchase top top uniforms for say track and field nowadays we don't even purchase uh shorts for that anymore because everyone wears those compression shorts uh for the girls um and um football basketball soccer lacrosse they're still we still um purchase the traditional top and bottoms like I said track and field volleyball uh we we uh purchase the top only in general they range from 75 to 125 per uniform probably closer to that 125 um and um bottoms range from 60 it's probably a little bit lower um you know closer towards the60 to $100 per uniform for the bottom we'll get into some non-funded costs so Sports aren't just because we don't have paid to participate doesn't mean that sports are free here you have to purchase and I look as I look around the

012table many of you if not all of you have had you know students who have done some kind of athletic uh Venture here at amidy uh and um if you're a baseball or softball player you have anything from bats to gloves bat batting gloves cleats helmets if you're a catcher there's a whole another set of gear there so you're looking at you know $810 to $1,200 if you're a catcher just to participate in that sport hockey is crazy 2200 and that's $400 a stick nowadays skates are going from anywhere you can get probably the cheapest pair of skates you can get nowadays from what I here is about $600 all the way up to about $1,600 uh with replaceable blades and all that stuff so you know that that that's what it costs to um

013just to outfit your son or daughter for hockey skiing again you have to purchase everything from practice lift tickets to um poles boots skis helmet the USA uh skiing now has um a specific um uh helmet um certification so you have to purchase the correct helmet which is3 $400 yes uh and uh so you're talking 2,000 or more dollars there golf again estimate I think $1,400 is a low estimate um but again clubs you know te's practice balls we do provide um match balls for the kids but we don't uh provide practice balls shoes and uh if you have a glove so that's some of the extra costs of Athletics and um families and parents they bear the the burden of all these non-funded costs all right uh in addition I'm sure again if your

014son or daughter has done a sport lately you know about all the gear sales that the teams are doing nowadays with hoodies and sweatpants and all kinds of stuff and it's nice because a lot of them get their names on it and that kind of stuff we were actually just talking before the meeting about names on on uniforms and stuff but a lot of um the kids will get the sweatshirt with their name on the on the sleeve which is nice and then they obviously keep it at the end but again it's an added expense to families for that all right and while this supported by the B operational budget Athletics is not quote unquote necessarily for you I think this is Terry I'm good evening so um Dr buers asked uh me to kind

015of give you some more information about the details of what pay to participate would look like and first I do want to thank um this is really a team effort um the athletic department had to give me information on the athletes the power school instructional leader had to give me information from power school about sibling relationships free and reduced launch data and then the list of questions that we used to survey that um I had developed one of the staff members in finance called all the dur B schools to gather that data so that we could put this presentation together for you tonight so first I just want to remind you who the dur schools are this um this is listing 19 of the 21 I obviously did not survey orange and Woodbridge because they're

016Elementary they don't have secondary Sports um so these are the school districts that we are comparing ourselves to um of the 19 in the survey 13 um do have pay to participate and six do not uh I will note that two districts enrolled um you know started pay to participate a few years ago actually probably some maybe 10 one maybe 10 years ago one maybe like five or six and they they stopped it um one of the NOS is obviously Amity um Guilford is a no on the only sport they charge for is hockey they leave that as a standalone and then Fairfield and grenage are the other two NOS so what are the ranges of fees that are charged um $100 to $300 per score you could see that 300 is really kind of

017the outlier there they're more in the range of the average 157 per sport um that's the trend line across uh those who do actually charge family caps there are some who have no family caps there's no data listed there for them and then some who do again they range from 400 to $1,200 for family caps again the 1,200 kind of being the outlier there the average family cap is around 597 in addition to that some districts have uh additional fees for that are sports specific um as Mr Goodwin alluded to some these sports are expensive hockey being one football being one and Gymnastic hockey is the most common that you'll see an additional fee charged for um along with the pay to participate fee there's a separate fee for hockey have structures about caps on

018that um some have co-op arrangements and varying costs like uh Grand B listed there at $1,000 their range was actually ,000 to $2,000 could be their fee um one one District charges $50 for football and one charges separate for gymnastics um again with a structure with a family cap in play so what would it look like if AMD decided to do pay to participate we've got to start somewhere with some basic assumptions in order to come up with some kind of Revenue estimate to give you so first is I'm going to go with the $150 is the sport uh the fee per sport we saw the range the average was 157 so we'll start at 150 Middle School sport there wasn't a lot of information but what we saw was $90 so we started that

019at lower uh family cap we said at 500 again you saw the average was 597 so we're being conservative here we said 500 we would this is assuming no additional charges for hockey football gymnastics I don't know we still have a gymnastics team we have dance we sometimes we have a couple yeah um no charge for uh unified sport athletes uh students qualifying for free lunch would not have any payment due for sports and students qualifying for red reduced lunch would pay 50% of the pay to particip pay fees so those are the assumptions that we are basing this assment on this is where the data came in from power school and such so um over a th athletes at the high school level assuming 150 there are 26 that would reach that that family

020cap of multisport and remember if it's 150 you need more than three so it's not one child playing three sports or two kids two and one you somewhere you got to hit a fourth sport uh so and this is data based on the uh school year of uh 24 so again we know this data will change every year based on what our current family structure are number of athletes the number of athletes uh that qualify for free lunch were 60 so that would be a reduction the number of high school athletes for qualifying for a reduced lunch would be uh 19 and again another reduction so high schools estimated Revenue would be 160,000 roughly Middle School sports did the same kind of analysis starting with about 422 students um 11 families might qualify for the

021family cap 24 free and reduced eight uh 24 free8 reduced so another 40,000 could possibly generated from middle school sports this would all be done through our payment system my payments plus there's a um fee to process uh 3.99% so that would take about $88,000 off that that Revenue giving us a revenue um estimate of approximately $193,000 so what does that mean that means for the towns based on the current allocation rate that the Open Enrollment report which you'll see later in the packet tonight that that would offset Bethany's allocation by about 31,000 orange is about 93,000 and Woodbridge is about 68,000 but what does it mean per family so I contacted the pounds and ask them how many uh taxpayers do you have and then put that in there and then you can see

022the breakdown about $13 for a household in Bethany 17 in Orange and about 22 in Woodbridge other things that we need to consider if we go in this direction we need to develop and Implement a process to collect fees the staff are required to input this data into Power School free and reduced scholarships are applied manually um there's a manual determination of when that cap is reached because I mean it's it's possible in the first fall season if multiple family but it might not be till the spring season so it has to be a constant monitoring of when a family hits that cap right now we don't have an automatic way to do that um and we also have to be careful when we assess the fees you know you you don't want to charge

023people and then have to refund them if they don't make the team but then once the competition start you want to make sure everyone is has paid in full so that they're eligible to play um so that timing has to be that's a very short window of tryy outs to team to actually collecting the fees then um the board would have to develop a policy to address non-payment fees what would we do if someone didn't pay the fees and yet they made the team um obviously the athletic handbook would have to be updated to reflect those changes so philosophical and Mission driven considerations does pay to participate align with amon's mission to enable every student to become a lifelong learner and a literate caring creative and effective World citizen does it support portrait of a

024graduate does it align with am's commitment to the 3as does pay to participate align with our District's wellness policy does it align with the board's commitment to equity so are some other thoughts that need to go into the decision so I if anybody has any more questions tonight obviously it's a lot of information to digest could I just see the uh the allocations to the town's per taxpayer thank you so 193 446 is what it would cost what we would save correct correct if we didn't do that it would be another Revenue Source in the budget that would offset town allocations getting into the spirit of budget season and you guys know me by now um we have a lot more than that left over at the end every year so the fact that we're

025talking I mean I thought this number was going to be a lot larger before this presentation was was presented um I'm out I I I say I say don't don't fix it if it's not broken well and that was some of the intent right we always talk about it but we never had numbers to put to it for you to either say oh gee this is a great source of Revenue and look at how much it will save us in the budget or to your point because I actually thought they were going to be higher until Terry did this wow that actually doesn't bring in very very much revenue and for the headache it would cause us type of idea but I think you need to have that information so that when you do go

026and talk to Boards of finance and they start to say well why aren't you doing pay to playay 13 other dirby districts are doing this you can go armed with information or you may come back and say you know what we really do need to lower the budget and every as you have famously said sometimes every dollar counts and so here's another place where every dollar counts but again this was just intended to be informational so you can kind of process and chew on the data before we actually have to make these decisions but you also actually have information which we've never had in the past it's just been speculative I also have to say that was very well put together yeah thank you for that slide in particular understandable and then you look at

027the impact of the numbers compared to a our mission right all of our values and you look at it in terms of the work it would cost I'm out we'd have to have a serious conversation about that last slide and how it aligns with our values I think that is the most important can I ask a question to the two students on the end do you either you play sports yes I do but not through the high school okay well even just being part of the high school what is your guys take on uniforms and everything else comparatively to other schools if you can comment like being the students that are wearing uniforms seeing the uniforms how do we stack up is there anything that you change is there anything that you see as an

028issue I think the current model is actually working pretty well okay and then I think implementing fees for uniforms and other things related to sports would only deter certain students yeah no I'm not going there I'm just asking like do you see anything that could be improved like is there our uniforms are comparative to other schools like we're not like the low man on the totem pole like we're from what you guys see we're comparative good no issues coming out no shortfalls yeah I was on the swim and dive team my freshman year and the uniforms are always amazing very high quality swimsuits okay that's what I was hoping to hear but I figured I know Janice don't be quiet go ahead um well I just want to say like I run on the cross

029country team and we actually just got new uniforms this year but I mean either way the new uniforms are great previously I think the old uniforms were also great like we weren't at the other schools at meets being like oh wow our uniforms are so much more shabier it was just like we felt like we were pretty much equal yeah so I have a comment which is not related necessarily to the decision I think that amounts are small enough that there is no reason to change it but I I find found it a little odd to call this pay to participate given that we make everybody pay 1,500 to 2,000 bucks and then we on the additional $150 we call it somehow that it is paid to participate I found the term quite uh strange

030and I I I just wanted to point that out like you know meaning I don't think we are charging you know we people still have to pay and that's fine and I there is a sense of school pride Etc which might be a good reason why you might want to do this and like you know and I I just think maybe there is a better way to frame this this spay to participate sounds awkward well it and it's intended um because pay to play suggest your child may actually always come off the bench and play in a game and that is not how we typically run our athletic programs so to make it clear that you are part of the team but I got that but you to participate you still have to spare spend

031a lot of money right absolutely and uh so this is maybe the schools the the bo saying oh you're representing us and we are excited to give you something from our s and maybe there's a better positive way of presenting what we do I want to give everybody a turn to speak so Christina I appreciate this I really do because we have spoken about this yearly and it always comes up as an option so having a dollar amount attached to it is is really helpful um beyond the cost that you mentioned I know that we have for our athletes I mean we have the camps that they're encouraged to go to that cost extra money there's the merchandise sales for multiple sports teams and then within that the parents and God bless the PTS SOS

032and the yes for the work that they do with the bake sales the car washes the fundraisers the restaurants there is a so much money that goes in that I would almost like to have a different conversation about how we can contribute more to the expense that the parents take on supporting their young athletes um just because it is it is incredible when you think about the amount of money the parents are putting into the school supports I'll second that motion we have a question down here too that somebody that hasn't spoken get that I have a question about uniforms so do they come from the same do you order from like the same place I'm just wondering about the quality of the uniforms you had a price like a range of of the cost

033but how does the quality compare like across the different sports like football compared to soccer for example so uh I work with uh there there's a lot that goes into it we have um I would say three main vendors that I use use for our uniforms I stick with those number one they're local people I'm I'm big that is just my personal feeling that we have done business with Blanchett sports for over 50 years and they have been very good to us they would come out if I if I called them right now and said I need a soccer ball right now they would drive out and and deliver it so they've been awesome uh Sportsman uh and um also uh Stadium system have been our main uh source for uniform Stadium system right now

034we're looking to try to get some new ski uniforms that we haven't gotten in a long time and they have risen in price dramatically from when we last purchased them Stadium system actually has um a company that a factory they work with that actually took one of our suits they uh are looking at it so that they can uh see if they can make a version that would be sublimated and also uh fit in a little more um to our fiscal conservative uh budget right um and and so so that that happens uh coaches and uh Sports kind of tend to vary towards one um vendor or one make brand than the others most of our uniforms are Adidas or Under Armour uh so like boy soccer they love their Adidas and girl soccer has

035been under armor for the past six uh uh months um you talked about swimming we switched over to the jolen shirts suits uh they they came to me and said come on Mr Goodwin and I said well they're a little more expensive and they said but they look great okay and look it we're now backtack SEC Champs but um you know we do everything we can to try to provide our kids with great uniforms um you know case in point we had um we finally got some new black uh uniforms for boys ice hockey last year we're all excited about them and all of a sudden we had an SEC patch which is our league half the patches fell off what the heck is this immediately the vendor took them back and replaced all the

036all them they're going to look really sharp again with all their stuff so they back all their products and that kind of stuff so I'm very happy with our vendors and I I would say that you know going around our league we are very well outfitted thank you I had two thoughts our one thought um when I saw the pay to participate the the thing that went through my mind is we're looking at athletes all the time and there's a lot of participation that goes on in the school and I feel like if we did look to do participation you know our other um band chorus drama like are these things that are going to be things that we would look to um look to encourage kids to participate to pay to participate in those

037things as well you it shouldn't be something that just falls on the athletes um the second thing was uh I know that Mr Goodman talked about how kind of uniforms go down and down uh I was fortunate enough that my daughters picked up field hockey this year uh at the middle school um and I honestly I I try to be all sunshine and Roses but uh our uniforms were not on par with kind of the kids that we saw our kids had uh sublimated t-shirts whereas the guilford's the branford's uh The hatam Killing wors had uh like real field hockey uniforms and so for me that you know I think that that was something that uh I kind of took away from it and said hey this is something that that so I was very

038surprised I didn't bring this up about about these uniforms tonight so when somebody else brought it up I was like oh well what's going on here so it was definitely something that I noticed I I'd have to agree with the soccer team as well like when we played chesher and some other schools we just looked a bit different than than the other teams and yeah I think it'll be you know so the rationale behind that is that the kids uh well so it's very hard sometimes to collect uniforms and that's a lot of extra work and uh giving the kids a shirt you see a lot of the kids come up to the high school they're still wearing their middle school shirts that they participated in you you don't have to you know give those

039back and that's the way I we could go to a a a uniform if we want to just look better to to um you know uh go to a a reusable uniform it's that adds more work because you have to design and in order those and and um you know I I always found it as more the sense of Pride that the kid get got to participate and keep the sh well but I think our our other sports showed that when we get them nicer uniforms we we get those SEC championships nice ni I might ADM miss this but um for to pay to play does not include the extra cost that the parents have to pay that listed set so they also have to pay for all that other Equipment Plus pay to pay

040thank you for putting all this together I really appreciate it so um a question I have is well first of all I Echo everyone else's sentiment that I'm not in support of um any type of fee for students to participate in cor band uh musicals support Sports and if there were ways to off that cost even more that would be wonderful but another question I have Ernie does the Middle School uh gym uniform fall under your department no okay because you know I hear from parents about the pennies of having to buy them and then it is um touted that oh your siblings can use them however they're asked to use a Sharpie on them which by the way is impossible to get out even with the old um you know using rub rubbing alcohol

041so I wasn't sure if since we're talking about budgets is there a way to I'm not sure who that falls under to build that in to you know recycle that into the I have a lot of them in my house I'm sure I can just sell them back to the school and if you can find a way to uh get the name off of them that would be great oh I did see MIT has some kind of uh new engineering where it's for Logos and stuff too so supposedly you can change them out that's right can I can I ask one last question please what's the what's the impetus for for this for like I know that it's come up a couple times but I guess what's the what's the thought behind it was probably

042me I asked I flat out asked oh okay just as an education thing to myself and as a new board member I specifically asked I said hey what is the uniforms what are expenses my daughter's a freshman she just started a team and I had a couple people similar to him question some of our uniforms that like you're saying we didn't quite maybe look as snazzy as other teams and I said hey what is can you fill us in and I'm sure you know I'm guessing a couple of you back there are here to listen to it too you know like my question to you is if you could change anything and please don't take it as without a price tag a would there be anything that you could change would change if you could

043to be honest I'm very very proud of what we have uh done here at Amity for many years uh you know the previous athletic director to me is in like the national Hall of Fame and he's so well regarded all over the country so AMD has had a very good um reputation of having quality Athletics uh obviously uniforms we we do our best to to outfit as best we can um you know and uh we have things that come up but I'm very I think we're in a very good spot I think a lot of our teams get what they need uh actually the dance uh we talk about dance but dance came to me today and and said listen you know would you ever um get us a second outfit for our routine the

044routine uh that we are doing in um uh Palm it's just not it the uniform just doesn't fit and because we try to be Equitable and not equal I was able to say yes and which is I think a really nice thing the coach was very excited I think the girls will be very excited and um it'll be a nice thing that we can do for them um so we we are very lucky that Amity has had a very strong philosophy of outdoor out outfitting and um putting Athletics as one of the Three A's that we care a lot about and I think it shows I we had a great fall and it's not just in winds we just received an email um today that I think capitalizes capitalizes what we're trying to do in

045High School athletics we got an email from a Guilford parent um this morning um Thanking us for the incredible her son was hurt at the end of the game and was sitting on the bench all by himself and our players went through the handshake line and took the time to go over to to him and shake his hand as well uh and the parents just were blown away with our sportsmanship our gratitude and complimented our coaches and everything like that so that's that's the things that we're trying to do in athletics it's great to put banners up but it's those long lasting memories that uh we are really trying to do and trying to teach those to be honest the portrait of The Graduate I go over it every um coaching uh uh meeting that

046we have is how important that Athletics fits into that portrait of graduate that you all work very hard on and I think is continuing so Kathy yeah to that to that point we're looking at what it costs for a lot of those Sports to participate in even though we're not doing right how limiting do you find that limiting is limiting to students who would want to participate could participate and is there any is there ever any room like we talked about even and pay to play if they can't pay for lunch we make somewh you know some things there is there is there any thought any room are you finding it not limiting I I right now don't find it limiting it would be maybe something that might be a survey uh thing that we

047could do uh maybe there are people out there that we don't know about because you know um you know we do have you know a a variance of economics in Amity um I I don't feel that is with the feedback that I get um but there might be some kids that are limited we do have you know I know that we have like a um a locker of field hockey sticks just in case somebody doesn't have one we can we can provide it per freshman girls lacrosse we were finding that girls you know were like ah you know I don't want to purchase the equipment we have a bag that our freshman coach carries around with a couple of extra sticks and gloves and stuff like that so I mean could we start like a

048bank sure we could uh of stuff somebody wanted to start up the used Amity gear store because all the all the kids who graduate they their parents have all this extra gear that they purchased I think that's a great idea that's a great idea I mean if you talk to parents ski they go to the US ski sale every year I I do want to finish this up and I think Kathy and it the the question you're asking is a much bigger one and goes far beyond the school so if you think of the number of our student athletes who actually come up having started Athletics as a six-year-old or an eight-year-old and all of the time and investment that parents have already put in that's also a limiting factor and that's not something you

049can can fix but certainly a kid who has played tennis since they were six is going to do a pretty good job on the tennis team and somebody who didn't have those opportunities until they're 14 and when you have to make Cuts because you can only fit so many kids on a tennis team that also comes through and and that's a problem far beyond what we can address but I do think maybe sometimes those Equity issues that you're asking for are actually rooted much deeper and earlier in family's lives but I do think a you know a swap a swap a Swap Shop it's a great idea okay our last uh so I want to go back to that framing issue of pay to participate it just made me feel uncomfortable and I just wanted

050to propose like you know is there a way to think about it that this is like you know what we are uh giving the students because it you know it's a matter of Pride that they are wearing our uh our uh shirts or whatever like you know and I think it's a it's a kind of a pride budget not a participation you know tax right like I think it's a it's a it's a it's a pride am Pride budget and I think maybe there is a way to frame that as something more positive rather than as a cost which is why I think the discussion goes the way it does well what about activity fee I mean that's more of what it's it's positioned as it's more of an activity fee then you're really playing

051to participate because to the point of everyone else is that parents do put a substantial amount of money for gear and for helmets and Etc and I I do agree that um you know some type of swap would be great I mean we we do the Ski Swap because our kids are you keep growing and especially if you're um you know that's that's something that can be uh established that would that would be great and I also think that perhaps if you could do a survey to uh students and parents because some of these you they are barriers to entry you know skiing especially that's a lot of a equipment and even swapping that stuff out those boots can still be 200 skis 220 Etc they might not be brand new because they're not 350

052400 but it's still a barrier okay I'm going to I'm going to end this conversation uh I'd like to uh remind board members as we go through the budget uh as we develop the budget keep some of these thoughts in mind uh we probably can answer questions better with people say well well why don't you have a pay to play type fee or something like that you have that information now and uh also down the road I think maybe if we look at this more deeply as far as a uh a principle a philosophy of the board we can maybe establish something so that we would know where to go in the future it's been my experience over the years that school districts that establish these fees generally do it from the standpoint of not

053um uh reducing the cost to thex taxpayers but because they don't have enough money in the budget to pay for it and uh we've been able to handle that and so that might be something that you should all consider so with that uh we will go on to public comment uh I would uh read the statement that I do prior to public comment uh at all our meeting this time the board would like to invite members of the public up to the Lector for public comment please State your full name and address if you are a student or under 18 years of age please state only your first name each speaker will be allowed up to 3 minutes for public comment with a maximum of 20 minutes per meeting allocated for any one item speakers

054are reminded that the presentations are to be made with in a respectful manner derogatory language which maligns the character of Staff members board members and other members of the public is unacceptable and not in keeping with board policy and core values please note that as a matter of board policy the board does not respond to public comments or questions immediately but may discuss the subject and respond if appropriate at a future time uh we have three minutes and we'll call anybody up to the lect turn that wishes to make a statement in public comment slide in later um I'm Robert limb 956 corn Cloud Lane in Orange um few things first I want to just recognize it's it's Veterans Day perhaps you did already um I want to extend my appreciation to all members of

055The Amity Community who served and I actually didn't know this until the February meeting but there's an Amity military wall of Honor by the cafeteria so there's anybody here who hasn't had a chance to just um take a look and maybe it's a great day to meditate on it today um and what that means to all of us uh the second thing is I'm very excited about the community Forum next week um I actually submitted a question I don't know if we have to resubmit the question so I know you can't respond but somebody speaks to that during the uh subcommittee updates um I know that people are planning on attending and um I think they would all appreciate if they have a chance to kind of have that interactive conversation I know there's uh

056probably an idea that we want everybody to be very prepared who's participating in the panel so they can speak fully um to me it's always okay just to say hey we need to check on that we'll get back to you um I think that helps remove some of the the challenges in terms of having that interactive dialogue which honestly I think a lot of people want to have um and I think it would be a good thing uh the last thing is I wasn't able to attend the uh presentation of the school climate survey uh fantastic presentation I got a lot out of it um I noticed um not everybody was there so if you haven't had a chance to to check it out on streaming I encourage everybody to do so uh the thing

057that caught my uh attention is the feedback from certain members of the community who had among the lowest scores in terms of cultural acceptance so uh those are the trans folks um they make up a you know somewhat significant portion of the response uh their response was 1.6 on a scale of four which you know roughly 1.6 and that puts them somewhere between um somewhat disagree and you know very much disagree and when Mr um downhour was talking about this in terms of the Deltas from the previous year one thing he said is well we administered the survey right after that February meeting which if you were all here you know there was a lot there was a lot happening at that meeting um but there were some some really comments about uh the trans

058community and the trans students at the school which I mean they were here they were listening right they know what adults in the community were saying about them and you know it got to I got to thinking I think it would be meaningful because you know we're all part of this community too right I don't recall seeing anything and I don't have a a child at the the high school my son's at the middle school but I don't see anybody just basically saying hey you know threats are not something that we accept right there was a lot of focus on the you know disciplinary aspect or what they were protesting so on so forth um so you know I know this uh board has been together for about a year um you know please finish

059up yeah yeah um you know maybe this is an opportunity for for you to have a voice in this as well thank you thank [Music] you anybody else for a public comment if not we'll move on to uh the next item on our agenda uh discussion of possible action no I'm sorry presentation of the 2526 school calendar which is on page seven uh so you have in your packet on page seven um a first draft for uh your consideration of the school calendar um this is developed in conjunction with the superintendents of our three Elementary districts um to try to align uh start dates um some of our professional development days certainly our vacation periods um and uh in in some cases some of our uh holidays um I also know um because I meet

060with my student reps that you were in receipt of some letters that were sent by our student government advocating for some additional holidays to be built into the calendar um I do know that they sent those letters to the boards of Education for the three Elementary districts um so I don't really have a response in terms of how those Elementary districts are going to make decisions in the calendar um just a couple of things that I will point out to you uh that make this calendar uh just a little bit different than um than the the prior year calendars uh the first one is in January uh you'll notice that we always typically um would come back the day after New Year's the day after New Year is a Friday and so so coming back

061for one day at the end of the holiday didn't seem like to be a very good idea so we did add an additional day as part of that winter break um the other thing is this calendar does as of right now maintain the week off for February uh this is also built into the calendars for Bethany and Woodbridge uh which is the same way our process is this year um the other thing that I will point out is that the Lunar New Year is February 17th so that holiday even though it's not explicitly addressed on the calendar is actually a day off of school for those students um March uh 20th which is in red is um Eid and so if the board were to decide to add Eid as a holiday March 20th would

062be a day off of school this is also going to be um proposed as a day off of school at the elementary districts but the reason is not because of Eid it is because the elementary districts have always had a full day of professional learning in the springtime in March and it just so happens that it lined up to be on that same day um so all of our students could potentially be out of school on that day but for different reasons um then um you'll see that Good Friday is not attached to the April vacation um it comes too early this year so it's its own Standalone holiday and then um The Proposal as it currently is is is that um without Eid school would end on June 11th with Eid added school would

063end on the 12th the calendar does not include a proposal to add um dwali in this iteration um obviously if we did it would bump us into the next week of June starting with the 15th um and if that were the proposal by the board what I would probably recommend is then taking out some of those days of February break because is pushing us into that week and then with the potential for snow just kind of makes everything end too late um so those are kind of the considerations that we have right now the board doesn't have to take this up you always get the calendar sort of a month ahead um the elementary districts also received it the boa superintendence and I will kind of gather the feedback we receive from the board so

064if you have strong opinions one way or the other please let me know that so I can advocate for that ultimately in the end um as much as we try to be aligned we still you know this year I case in point in terms of February break it's different in the different districts our PD days are oftentimes different so um this is sort of like I said a first draft and I will certainly see where the student gov letter to the elementary Boards of Ed where that um where that goes do we have questions yes um is it possible for me to read the letter because I know Alex wanted to be here at the meeting to present it body couldn't be here tonight um I think did everybody get the letter did everyone read

065the letter yes yeah okay yeah we we okay yeah uh I I was going to mention the letter myself but uh you know uh Ju Just one comment I had mentioned this before about uh contacting the other boards and one of the concerns is to establish some sort of methodology some policy that we can agree on when looking at the calendar and days off uh right now uh we generally have um rash Yom Kor off Good Friday of course is a state holiday too as a religious holiday Christmas Falls during the V winter vacation so uh the question was should we be giving uh Rosa sh good uh y kapor off and not some of the other holidays but where do we draw the line and I I think it's getting those boards bed together

066and looking at the problem and developing a plan of how we address it uh the demographics in our community change over the years uh we still have a very uh large Jewish population in this area but it's getting smaller so you know will there be a point at what uh we say in the future well maybe we shouldn't have those days off or even currently uh there may be Jewish holidays that don't give off that why don't we so uh you know we look at different religions and how they celebrate and what they celebrate these are all things to look at and uh I can't say for sure what we'll do on this calendar since I want everybody to think about it and look at it and we'll look at it next month and possibly

067vote on it then uh but also going forward in the future yes is there any data about the absences on these holidays uh we did look at that last year and um and and it was a very low rate of absence but that doesn't mean that the students aren't necessarily celebrating um but overall um none of them well of the two we we actually the only one we really looked at was Eid um it did not have it didn't have a different absence pattern than a normal day of school um the places where and at the same time we were looking at the February break and the places where we saw um deviations from the absence pattern were actually in the days around February break more so than around Eid um we did not look

068at Lunar New Year or dwali but we could easily Karen Jen but the so the the patterns like the populations that celebrate these holidays are probably much smaller so I'm wondering if it's if it's even very easy to see a pattern no it probably isn't it is such a yeah yeah they're they're small so yeah that's that's the concern and the issue right uh yes can can remind us the the reason for PD on Thursdays and the reason for February break so professional um learning on Thursdays so at one point it used to be on Fridays and it was based off of feedback from the professional development and evaluation committee that Fridays at the end of the week was not the best time to get meaningful PD from the teachers although it was considered far

069more convenient for our families um but if it's really about helping our teachers um they requested that it was on Wednesdays or Thursdays but some point during the week and and Thursdays was sort of what we settled on um but it was definitely driven by the need to move away from that Friday afternoon when the whole rest of the world has finished up and everybody's stuck here and not in the best mood for learning do they stay beyond their contracted hours on a on a Friday though no okay but it but but I think it was still the general feeling of everybody else gets to go and we're stuck here um the week at February break was really because um we needed we we in order to make for a meaningful senior experiential learning project

070um without the February break we were getting a very short period of time for students to complete their um unpaid internships or their senior interest projects um it was down I think at its shortest it was eight days so by the time you got settled in an internship started to learn what to do and then you were gone um so it was compounding both it wasn't a great experience for our students but at the same time many of our partner um group like our our community Partners were like it's too short for us to take kids in and do all this work for them only to be here for 8 days so we were finding that our Community Partners were actually not as interested in having our students as interns so by expanding that internship

071period it sort of has opened back up both a more meaningful experience for our students but also a bigger willingness for our Community Partners to accept our students but how I guess I'm ju I'm confused and unable to see how extending the school year gives them did it have to do with finals is that was part it's it's that it's generated around um the AP exam window so they don't go out until the AP exam window is done which is always the first two weeks in May and so when we finished at one point we were finishing almost in that first week in June and it just wasn't enough time does that make sense now okay thank you yeah yes come back you is there a reason that uh that Eid was looked at as

072opposed to dwali were just numbers of students or I think it's because the original conversations started around Eid and so that was last year and we didn't have it built in and so then when I was building the calendar this year I just knew that that was the first consideration that had come up um and then really it was Alex's letter that brought up the other two holidays this year if I remember right that was not true I think e and diali were both brought up and I was the one who said we should also do the Lunar New Year so that was how I remember it yeah okay anybody okay just real quick um because this was last year and I remember this discussion well for new board members we were told and correct

073me if I'm wrong again that for those who celebrate those holidays they are excused absences I know absences came up somewhere so regular absence if someone you know Christian faith calls out on that day in his absent they're going to get charged we'll call it with with a with a you unexcused absence with that particular faith if it aligns with that date they get an excused absence just for new board members if you didn't know that if that's still the case right aren't don't you get unexcused if you call in like if if you're absent you're marked absent but it becomes unexcused if your parent recognizes that or something or no you don't do any of that okay so what qualifies for excused and unexcused um that's a big question I have time to answer

074that oh it's a big question oh yes all right so I will be more than happy at some point to take that up in one of our special meetings um but I can't even begin to tackle that right now no problem car I just wanted to jump off what Sean said because that was true and then I also remember uh students that were here or maybe there was a board members who had mentioned that even though it's excused many students will still to school because they don't want to miss the instructional time so by giving them the day then it kind of takes that off their plate and they'll be able to enjoy their holiday so C I just want to say that it's also yes they would be excused but again they're if the

075rest of the building is in session they're going to come it's also an opportunity for us to like think about other religions cultures celebrations right you have the day off and that's s to say even if you don't celebrate you know that oh this is like Dali or it's e or right and like you have friends that are like of that Faith or you know culture and so it's also a way of like um exposing our learning and also and also like respect right um so just want to say that thank you uh I just one one more addition to this um did get uh some feedback about the start of school and um you know why did we add a February vacation instead of just starting school like after Labor Day next year in

0762025 Labor Day is the 1st of September so it's not really you know it's not like starting on the 7th or something like that uh but that changes from year to year so it makes it inconsistent so are we are we kind of on a pattern or plan that we start the Monday before Labor Day each and every year that has definitely been since I've worked in this District um well no we did switch um when Co came so we used to start the Wednesday before Labor Day so it was pushed a little later but um but we start with that that Monday in those two half days um and I I in the feedback again from the elementary districts they love the half days they like starting on that Monday and that has been

077something that they've really advocated for ever since 2020 okay oh so I'm in the camp of starting after La day I've always been to me that has been The Unofficial and of summer so I would like to see us start after after Labor Day as a parent I don't really enjoy um starting before Labor Day and getting everyone ready including the half day I plan to be a little conversome in scheduling our time off and our break and when we talk about the the board calendar it's the same thing of having an August meeting as well because there was a lot that I couldn't watch because there was technical issues and there were a lot of things discussed that I would like to have been a part of but I was away and it would

078be nice if the board also had off in July and August so my other question is how much um for PD and do we have full day P we have three um full days in August one full day in November and then like an a 2hour early release all of the other months right so um just for consideration I mean is there a way I I support um the recognizing of the additional three holidays because I also understand that students don't want to Mis learning and have to make up I understand that this excuses them but that doesn't change that they'll probably still come in because they don't want to miss learning uh for some of those students so I'm just wondering if there are ways that we can move those maybe PD days around

079to allow for those holidays as well and I guess the next question is um I understand the teachers are are from what you said are interested in having a Wednesday or Thursday um you know but what would probably be better for families is a Friday early dismissal so so this is going to this is one of and I appreciate that um PD is for teachers and right I'm always the person who's like students first we have to do what's best for students if PD is really to make our teachers better for our students then I have to have it on an optimal day for the teachers it's one of those points where I really do have to think about the adults first because I need them to get the most out of their learning to

080make it most meaningful for our students um so can I ask Why th um I you know the PD days around the holidays we made a shift again I think it was three years ago we used to only start the year with two PD days and then we had the day in November and the day in March um we found that we did not have enough time to get through everything that we have to get through with our staff with just two PD days to start the year and so we actually took took away the March day and increased it to three in August if we were to use say Diwali or Eed at and turn those into professional development days we would actually lose those three PDS days at the start of the year

081and we would be down to one and frankly there is I cannot start the school year with one day of professional development so it really is is is not a option um for us to kind of use that um and then the the November day is is fairly locked in because it's election day and while that doesn't have a direct impact on us per se so many other districts in the state use schools as polling places that state level professional development say for health and PE teachers or for sometimes art teachers it's actually planned for that day because it is the one day of professional development that consistently every single School District in the state of Connecticut has off so if I have some unique professional development needs that's planned at a state level that's

082the day that it happens and I can send again my teachers out for some pretty meaningful relevant PD on that day so what about the February break I mean is there any way to work out these that don't involve February just a question and have we surveyed families around the February break no cuz we haven't tried it yet is this is we right this is our first year that we're trying we voted to do this this is the first year that we in a long time hard doing in a long time get their and opinions right yeah uh one two more three more that's it and well I'm please try and make them short just going off of what Miss Shuster said have we collected any data from the elementary schools about ending school a

083little bit later because I know a lot of summer programs don't start until the last two weeks of June and sometimes this can imp impos a financial burden on families where they have to pay for child care within like the first two weeks of June if we get out of school super early so that's also maybe something so um so the one school district that is most concerned with when we end in June is orange because they have unir conditioned buildings and so they are truly the ones who sort of drive that very early start time in um before Labor Day because they very much want to be done with school by that second week of June because they don't have air conditioning and they have been also the one District where I know they've

084had to do early release days because it's just been too hot in the buildings in June so again you know it's and and I know surveying parents is a great way to get information but one responsibility of the board is to set the calendar and and so remember you're representing people and you're making that decision as representatives in the way that you think is best for your community so I think absolutely reaching out to your consist constituents is a way to get that information to bring it back here thank you Andrea just I'm trying to clarify what Donna what you were saying I know that November is set and the first three days of uh PD are set yeah but are you thinking about combining those day those half days into a full day so

085you're eliminating like is it contractual that they have to have all the half days of PD or early dismissals or can they be combined so it's well the half days are not contractual but contractually I can't ask the teachers to work more than 185 days and this is a 185 day calendar but so so I couldn't so like so Eid I couldn't say um kids don't have school and teachers you have to come to work because our students still have to come for the 180 days got it so I there there's know I mean unless the board and I I see Mr Sarah pigley is here unless the board would like to impact bargain for making the teachers work extra days in their contract that is a very expensive proposition so it's 100 so contractually

086they have 185 185 our calendar has 181 for students legally they have to go 180 and we've always had that one forg we call it a forgive me day so if for some reason snow days push you to say the Monday you are able to forgive that as a student day so that you don't have to end on a we Monday okay I just I have been trying to say my for a long time uh I have to say that like this does not make me feel good uh the proposal for putting e first because as I said like you know when and I remember the proposal last year was that it was Eid and the was the request I think the student put and I was the one who mentioned that that seems inadequate

087given that the Chinese Community is large enough in this community that we should also honor the Luna new year so I I remember this very vividly uh but the reason I I think it is important is that like now I I don't know orange and Bethany as well but I have seen the community s the size of the Indian Community in Woodbridge it is now fairly a reasonably large-sized community and I've seen many events around the uh things Etc and so I think it is and it and and the and Community would feel quite bad if their request was not considered so I want to make sure that we do uh bring this up in a way that I think the several members of the committee would feel quite bad so I think it's important

088but more importantly I think putting these things in a split way I think is not ideal I think if we are dealing with the three I think we should deal with the three and like you know we should should come up with a way that I I again I don't know what clearly there are constraints otherwise you would do it right like you know I respect that but I I do think we have to figure out a way to do this uh to the extent that is possible uh and I I I would say another thing like you know to Carol's point about respect I think you know when there is a large community group of people we worry about everything I remember last year we spend inordinate amounts of time thinking about what the

089airline ticket cost would be if we split the uh thing between the weekend versus Etc because it affected so many of us that we were willing to spend considerable amount of time and I was kind of surprised that like the level of thought we would do into like you know how people would get flight tickets as opposed to something like this uh was quite different in the amount of weight that we put in and as a representative I want to make sure that the voice of the folks who feel like this is something important is respected okay and I'm I'm sorry Paul just one more thing so I'm sorry it's about the lunar so lunar does fall on in February but I also want to give it the same weight because it's not just the

090Chinese it's East Asian communities and that if we give Fair consideration I do support giving Fair consideration and I support giving these days off because of our community and for all the reasons that were mentioned but also in the future because lunar moves okay but here's my point this was an introduction of the calendar we had a discussion please submit your concerns questions to the superintendent because we are going to take this up at our meeting in uh December and vote on it so all of these things will be discussed again with the actual outcome being decided uh with that we have an agenda that we need to complete I'm going to ask the board that we move on at this time uh discussion and possible action on setting the 2025 graduation date which we've

091done pretty much uh at these meetings uh and for previous few years with the new statute that allows us to do that and establish a permanent date uh at this time Dr Myers so I have to credit um Sophia um for reminding me that I needed to do this because apparently her parents were asking when graduation was so at this point um the last day of school is scheduled for Tuesday June 10th and the board can set a graduation date on of Tuesday June 10th or anything after that if you so wish um it's usually our preference that we actually set it on the last day of school and not end school and then make the kids come back for graduation so that's what I would be asking the board to um to set the

092date for at this point in time SE one quick question with snow days and things of that nature if we set it as the last day of school that's the language so it is you set it as graduation date so it means that if we have snow days the sth through 11th graders will still be here in school but our seniors will have graduated on Tuesday June 10th we are setting a date yes okay that is correct and this is strictly the date of graduation for the seniors has nothing to do with the last day of school for the school district any other questions concerns but it is the 10th 10th the last Daye because as of right now in your calendar the last day of school is the 10th once snow days come it

093will not be but you can still set graduation for that date okay okay our discussion will not continue do I have a do I have a motion have it from Sean and Mike Sean Mike thank you uh with that uh the motion is to have graduation on uh Tuesday June 10th 2025 yeah is there any further discussion none there's no penalty in doing that right no penalty in in terms of credits and exams and okay I'm good Miss Bradley yes Mr Davis yes Miss Iker yes Mr hon yes Miss Hub yes Dr KRON yes Miss L ddio yes Mr mcdonal yes Dr ol delay yes Mr Reed yes M flank yes Miss Sher yes okay the mo carries graduation day will be on June 10th so when anybody asks when graduation is we can answer

094that question now uh moving on to uh number eight discussion and possible action on uh 2024 2025 Board of Education regular meeting schedule which is on page eight and this is what I was trying to get in a word before that now is the time to ask the question about the board meetings all right uh before we do that do I have a uh motion to approve this uh for meetings Carla and uh Andre uh discussion sure uh I know one or two three meetings ago we had the proposed special meetings in there yep those all stay the same so the yes so the special meetings that I sort of informally set would stay the same um these are the ones that once we set them we have to have these meetings um and allow

095us to operate with a regular meeting agenda I have to submit these to the towns by December 1st um it doesn't change our ability to have the special meetings but these would be our official regular meetings and I think it gives us kind of a year to sort of finish with this model to decide if it's something that we want to continue without adding the special meetings as part of our regular meeting agenda great thank you any other questions if not yes yes so is for the August meeting um is there a specific reason as to why we need to have an A yeah because we basically have so much work we have to do to get the year started that I don't think all all of this the financial stuff mostly that backs up

096all summer long because we're doing a ton of finances we closed the books on June 30th we opened up a new fiscal year on July 1 we would be incredibly bogged down without having a meeting in the summer um August is preferable because it does give us time to sort of get all of that stuff worked out we did push it and again this was never me I I'm assuming it was moved to the third Monday in August to push it as late into that um that month as possible but um I I honestly don't think we would be able to to function as efficiently with all of the things we need to to do from Finance if we didn't have an August meeting Terry I don't know if you want to weigh in but

097I know you're a huge part of that yeah that August is one of our you know biggest agenda closed out the year that's why it is pushed to the third week it gives us more time to close out the year we talk about you know the capital uh Reserve um appropriation at that time I I just think if you bump it up to September September you you know would have a much longer agenda to get through about consideration and we often times have like um trans like transfers and things that we had to do sort of in the summer independently on our own because you guys aren't around um that we have to get caught up on um big purchases like a lot of times our our um computer leases are come through very late

098in June it's after the June meeting so we don't even get to talk about those until August so some pretty significant I think operational things that happen as part of that August meeting would there be a special meeting in June as well after the uh June 9 meeting yep so um so the way if again if we were to follow this year's proposal that special meeting is my evaluation and the board's sort of self-reflection and which we've kind of done special meetings for that all along and that's been the topic it just was never formally built into the schedule this year it's a little more formally built in would there be a consideration for the fourth Monday of the month if we are continuing to not start school after Labor Day so that is typically

099our first day of school right um so i' have to be here so that that makes it I think challenging for as an administrative year I just I understand that you want to be here for these meetings but there's 13 of us and if we all have concerns about what meetings I mean like last year one of the meetings fell on my anniversary and hey I wanted to be at home with my wife but you know like these things like I I understand you I listen I I was not being completely honest about wanting to be home with my wife on my but it's it's one day it's one day if you can't miss it that was on video you know well of course we understand you want your anniversary I'm just asking if there's

100a consideration so that since it is to your point an important thing and what we how we appropriate funds that is there any consideration consideration for the administrative staff who might be dealing with first day busing issues first day cafeteria issues first day special education issues I I can't guarantee our presence at that meeting because of what we are often dealing with on the first day of school maybe for a lot shorter meeting can we do it in reverse anybody have an issue with that Monday in August as it's presented besides we might as well be talking about that'll be our vote 2080 I mean I know but at this point in time at this point in time at this point no I think I'm free maybe I don't have to talk about it again

101in July and then I'm sure we will talk about it again we're writing that down uh give and onest point I I don't really have a problem with Monday you know I may not be able to come and that's fine but I wanted to ask if wedness day might be is there a reason why Monday has to be the day of the meeting or if if the first day I just wanted to ask that um no there's not a reason necessarily why Mondays are the day of our board meetings um the second week yes because the other Elementary School Districts take up the other like I think orange is the third week on a Monday um I can't remember when Woodbridge is but so they're taking up the other Mondays of the month so that's

102how we got the second Monday um Bethany I think is the outlier because you guys meet on Wednesdays right a lot of town meetings in Orange on Wednesday nights too yeah and that yes that's the other piece is that we were offset from other Town meetings so we weren't overlapping so people could attend them is there's already been um dates for the alternative meetings that we have that's already out we vot yes I shared those September for for next year well for the this year coming yes so special meetings we don't have to set in advance but a regular meeting schedule I have to set and give to the town clerk by December 1st I'm wondering if maybe the special meetings can be on an alternative day consider that something something for consideration okay consist

103Monday I'm getting a haircut yeah no I'm not free are we voting on the date now I don't even voting on this we're voting on the calendar as it's presented if you don't if you don't like it vote against it that's you know that's the thing yes sir I'm motioning it already get it moving thank you I I have I have Carla Iker and Andre hubard first second either way it's on the table sorry I missed them doing it okay all right ready roll call M Bradley yes Mr Davis yes Miss Iker yes Mr haror yes Miss hubard yes Dr kudron yes Miss L Dao yes Mr McDon yes Dr ol delay yes Mr Reed yes M lank yes Miss Shuster yes motion carries yes because that no would really just push it that would

104be the defining moment correct okay we move on to number nine correspondence uh anything special that we just we got two letters one was from the students which we've discussed on holidays the other was a program that's being socialized around um your body or choice and um it's a philosophy of educating your children to be aware of abuse that's the one we received very recently right yes okay thank you uh we move on uh Chairman's report uh one thing and it was already uh raised earlier uh Veterans Day and uh on behalf of the board uh I think all of us are on the same page in this and thanking uh members of our community members of uh um the military who have served and uh also uh honoring uh our students uh who have

105uh graduates alumnist uh who have served our country bravely and uh we think that one of the things that Amon does very very well is honor and uh reflect on the service that are given uh by former students at our school um veterans are are highly on our list uh of priorities when it comes to school I um don't know what was done today in school but I do know that there were numerous programs uh uh reflecting on uh Veterans Day and its meaning uh so uh that was something I did want to raise and was also mentioned our wall of uh veterans uh I knew several of the students and uh unfortunately several of our students who have passed and uh were uh killed in action uh uh make it difficult to think about

106them on days like today so so that that's important point from the chair and I know the board all agrees on that uh I also wanted to mention that uh uh we know that there was a lot of action uh uh in the field of politics this week past week with elections and at our last meeting um we had a presentation on the elections that were done in the uh uh schools um my understanding was that was a very well done process and the results were publicized and published we saw those results uh probably more of an indicator than uh most of us expected would be the outcome is uh uh pretty much right on target um going forward uh we uh will be looking at uh maybe some changes on the state level uh

107as we uh legislature now now uh will be meeting beginning in January so it's important that and our superintendent has mentioned that he's going to be keeping a close eye on the legislation that's uh uh put forth in Hartford for that that it will impact our school district uh each year it changes uh so it's something that all of us as members of the board might want to keep uh aware of and lastly as part of my report we do have our annual meeting on uh at the December meeting uh which will involve uh elections for one-year term for all of our officers uh so th those of you that are currently serving uh first of all I'd like to thank you I think you all did a great job and uh it's difficult to

108run a board without people that are willing to work hard and uh I can't imagine working with a finer group of people uh uh you know we we take a lot of abuse at times as board members but uh I can't think of anybody that's not here for the reason of uh service to our community service to our school district and the work and love of our children and the future of our children so uh on a personal note I'd like to thank you all for that and uh what I'd like to do is contact each one of you that I currently serve and see uh if you're willing to do it again and if you want to do it again or if there some changes that the board feels need to be made uh

109we'll bring that up in election uh at the December meeting okay all right uh committee reports Aces um brief report um last uh meeting Asis talk about moving special education programs to the best at really so uh multiple groups would be under building which would provide um opportunity to outs some different areas and provide more different level of education for them so that's it for all right uh Cave yeah the I've been delving into this and it's just mindboggling to me how many departments in the state level there are and the money that is flowing and the only one that's really come to my bit is I'm researching the 119k project I don't know if you've seen that yet that's mindboggling to me the amount that they want to do like 10 new departments and

110try to streamline everything to it and one of their aspects is to hit all the more rural towns and get rid of the individual superintendence and make them into regions and just I I don't know who thinks this stuff up maybe they're smarter than the rest of us but I think a lot of the money that I I see being appropriated for that could be spent much better at the individual School levels on teachers instead of 118 more administrative type people in Hartford the Caps cave convention is this Friday um it did require pre-registration but um uh if uh anybody is interested we can still see if there's an opportunity for you to attend that's sort of the biggest news coming out of them um and the November Journal just came out so you should

111have all received an email with an electronic copy of that in there um it's a good one um especially some of the um the legal updates and some of the budgeting articles so any additional questions I appreciate that uh didn't hear about that myself and uh it's have you I was going to actually stop in and ask you if you had seen anything on it it's it's interesting how they delve into it they're saying over the next 10 years there's 119,000 kids that are going to be a Jeopardy for not graduating having hardship not making you know productive citizens they going to be on the Dole and Ware how do you save all of these kids coming through and by like page 15 there's like 11 new departments they want to do and it's $25

112million here1 18 million there $40 million there we need new commissions to try to figure out what we need to do in the next 10 years and by page3 I still hadn't figured out what they're actually trying to do to save all these children and get them somewhere except spend I tried to add it up $178 million I started to lose count and I'm like how does and none of it seemed to go to actual teachers students schools it was all administrative we need to do surveys we need to do commission findings we need to do this and I'm like and who are all these people that are we hiring like is it superintendent assistants like who are they pulling that supposedly have the education to do this work that's a detailed c yeah okay

113no that that's my happy report a good one communication Communications we have um Communications we have our uh fall Forum next Monday um from 6:30 to 8 um focused on technology um you can submit questions up until Wednesday uh tomorrow that closes at the end of the day tomorrow the 12th tomorrow um and any questions that were submitted prior to the uh postponement will still be like addressed so you have enough questions this time do you have enough respons um I haven't looked at a little bit um hopefully um we had a we had a couple come in after um certainly not the same volume that we've had for other forums but enough to get the conversation started okay okay thank you District health and safety uh there was a meeting on October 8th and

114I'm just going um so I'm just going to uh go over some of the um highlights so the nurs report nothing really about respiratory out of the norm some car accidents though on and off campus and some um accidents what we usually see in the gym classes you see facilities you see Finance the only thing is about food service um since breakfast is no longer fee there free there's been a decline in the number of purchases um all carts have gone up and one thing that was mentioned is that they would like students to keep their IDs for the end of the year they use them the following year um and the there's some classes that are very popular team life um and the gym or the PE and health departments have been working hard

115to boost morale and they have Fizz Ed frenzy Fridays I hope I said that right which has been really popular to with the school and the staff and it's in the morning before class starts and music food and there are other departments that are interested I also have the minutes for this so instead of reading to you if anyone wants them happy to send them on appreciate that thank you uh diversity equity and inclusion executive committee I wasn't able to make the November 20 sorry not even October October on that calendar um the October 22nd meeting so I'm afraid I I might able to but what came out of it obviously was the climate survey presentation and discussion about it and then we have another one scheduled for November 22nd yes which I think might

116be next week I'm not sure uh District technology on page nine uh any questions on that any comments all right uh facilities on page 10 monthly report have not met but uh there's uh there is a report um there's one issue that we'll be going on hopefully next month we'll have more information about the thermostats at uh amsp there having some issues all right I I have a question yes has the district had to uh have you had to change anything in light of the like level two drought like or we have to change anything related to like your facilities operations or anything no no um I mean if it you know we still take care of and water the fields so they're probably much greener than your yard at this point um and and

117I mean you know and essentially when you consider that I mean we don't do burns we're in theory smoke free zone so nobody should be throwing out cigarette butts that are accidentally starting these fires so at this point we really haven't changed anything um I do think that um that the humidity problems that everybody complains about in the summer certainly have probably gone away and and air is a little drier than normal but that's it's not impacting us okay okay good question all right uh we move on to finance presentation discussion of third quarter 2024 executive summary revie we have many pension fund six s accounts and oped uh trust page 11 um we had Mr uh kmar uh our representative from fuan here at the AFC meeting and basically reported that all of the

118funds are performing near The Benchmark for the quarter and uh for the year around 20% so they're all doing very well they're on target um and they're uh well funded in comparison to State levels and actually opv is better than state averages so that's because we we don't charge as much as the state does for everything that they do okay we move on to uh the October 1 enrollment report page 35 so I left at your seats uh at the beginning of the meeting uh revised memo and it just corrected the towns uh in the direction that their uh allocations were going um if you look at the chart you could see that uh wood has a significant increase in the number of students students uh this year 44 while orange went down nine and

119Bethany went up two um so how that impacts Revenue if uh with a 0% increase in the budget um the enrollment shift alone would mean that Bethany would see about $104,000 less in their allocation orange about 73,000 less and Woodbridge about $887,000 more in their allocation um this we expected the enroll to increase by 27 students and it actually increased by 37 um and following that is the actual chart of the enrollment and Woodbridge does look on track to have another increase next year just the way they their enrollment is in their elementaries right now any questions on that I just have one question uh we have represented the representation of towns on our Board of Ed does the enrollment changes impact Which towns the representatives come from so no and Terry's better at explaining

120this but it's actually based off of the census data and so every 10 years when we get the Census Data it ties that into how the board composition is structured so it's so it's not School enrollment or District enrollment it's Town population okay that's a great question yeah thank you so that probably shouldn't change anytime soon yeah I'm guessing that given the I think it was 2020 we had it yeah 2020 was census yeah so but when you consider how many people it's taking into account it probably population pays the taxes so we got to take into account the population what can I tell you about that uh discussion of monthly financial statements page 37 so um not a lot of changes this month um a net change of about $644,000 um less available in

121the budget uh a lot of that has to do with special education we have a slight change in certified salaries and in unemployment compensation but um a lot of variance in special education transportation and tuition and Mr Brandt will give you an update afterward uh I will note that as far as health insurance claims go we're at 10.7% of claims so they're running um on the high side right now um kind of hoping that that's what they did last year at the beginning of the year they were um much higher and did come down uh did meet um with brown and brown to do some budget planning and they did indicate that our uh High claimants are currently low for the size group we have so that was favorable news um and hopefully will help

122the budget preparation okay any questions all right I just wanted to make the point that that like you know we are again this year in a area where of really low Surplus or like you know or not deficit funds like you know with 100.7 and then the revenues from the special from the state have gone down so this is clearly unfavorable news and uh but by the standards of the Surplus this is good news that we have been budgeting well so I just wanted to make that point again that uh you know that this is a this is a bad news scenario rather than a good news scenario but okay we move on to D Director of Finance Administration approved transfers under 3000 it's on page 65 there any comments or questions nothing okay uh

123e uh discussion of possible action on budget transfers over 3000 page 66 there are a few for us to consider uh M lus so actually I'm going to um ask if Mr brand can sort of give a special ed update two of the three transfers are related to special education and then that way it'll help make sense for the requests that are in there uh short thing so abbreviated update of what was provided to AFC so you'll see two transfers in front of you uh one of those transfers is to cover for a contracted agency providing par education par educator support we currently have three openings for par Educators in the district we've had these openings for various amounts of times but greater than a month for all of them we've had a very limited

124applic pool uh these openings uh have been for various different reasons uh Paras leaving par Educators leaving the district uh as I noted with AFC none of these Paras Educators who have left have left for another par educator role they have either left to become a dispatcher to go work at a private charter school that doesn't require certification or left um all together uh and gone into different uh family situations so this isn't from a case where they're leaving us to go to our elementary districts who may have pay better or you know different par educator uh compensation this is truly just these are very hard positions to fill at this time uh within special education so we work very closely with the staffing agency who has very competitive rates uh who are able to

125SEC secure at least one of those par educator uh openings as we do consistently have some turnover within our par educator openings um additionally you'll see a second transfer related to coverage of additional occupational and physical therapy costs uh those costs are really stemming from an influx of students who came into the district uh whether from our elementary schools um or uh from transfers in uh as I shared with AFC this uh transfer would cover if the billing rate stayed exactly the same for the entire school year I do not anticipate that to have happened but in complete transparency I'd rather come first from the board make a transfer to cover the funds as we anticipate them right now and then if need be you know move those uh funds if they are needed somewhere

126else additionally uh you heard uh Miss Lumis and her quick Financial update talked about some variances within special education Transportation what I shared with the finance committee is that those Varian are really uh coming not only from the bus route but when we require additional adults on the bus so AIDS uh there's been a significant cost in how much the AIDS are charged back to the district due to various changes that we're going to see in employment law coming in soon the increase in uh minimum wage which I believe is coming soon uh the creation of additional paid sickly for employees who may not have otherwise qualified so that Aid cost that gets shared to us while an indirect cost and goes under transportation is really a a human salary based cost that is now

127more substantial than in previous years when available we certainly do cover those aids with Amity employees Amity par Educators but given that we are currently short par Educators we're not always able um to do that and cover those with AIDS additionally Miss Lumis re uh referenced in her budget update some differences in special education uh tuition what those are coming through is there's been a drastic uh not drastic a change lately where tuition dollar amounts used to previously cover all tuition Services now all of our agencies including Asus um are going to an alart model meaning that they are now billing us a flat tuition rate and then adding additional fees for additional services that special education students require um we could get into that in a much larger meeting could be a topic for

128a special you know session board meeting in the spring about how all that happens but that is now why you're seeing variance in our tuition dollars that is very new additionally we've seen a substantial increase in the pass through cost on how much outside agen she charges us for PA of Professionals for our outplaced special education students that number is now pushing $50 an hour where before that was a much lower rate again passing on those costs that they're occurring now to the local school district so thus all the variances you see that is a very abbreviated version of what I shared with AFC happy to answer any questions but kind of hits at the Hallmarks with the expences you're seeing in my budget right now along with the budget requests that we do have

129in we we thank you for that appreciated uh discussion and um we also uh uh we had a damaged uh uh frequency dries that were damaged during a microG grid test and uh I I was kind of in the end of that meeting hearing a little bit about that but uh can anyone uh you want to tell us what uh that's all about you you only have to make it shorter than his short as possible he's only got one transfer he's got two so basically what frequency drive is it's it's for lack of a better word it's a computer that drives the motors for the air handling system it's the computer drives be Supply or the return F motor um it ramps the motor up an RPM up or down down depending on the demand

130of what the air was looking for so when they were doing the micro grid test at some point transitioning back to grid power it looked like we got a surge and it took out two of the drives one of the air handlers okay uh th this is an expense that the school district is bearing with the Hope sometime in the future that we can appeal to the state to somehow work out a deal where they could possibly sometime maybe five or six or seven years down the road uh possibly reimburse us uh for that but uh that was done with State money that still has our micr not working so uh we we're kind of stuck there so um uh to our uh uh AFC chair uh all of these three motions were recommended approval

131from the okay and we did it as one one one vote uh these are on page 66 uh replacing uh from uh contingency of facilities to repair maintenance 9,485 uh the two special ed ones uh CL from classified salaries two professional Technical Services in both cases one for 2,725 and the other one for $ [Music] the the new drives are a little more robust and even you know what we do to try to limit this is we shut down all the air handlers when they do the test and unfortunately for whatever reason even though the air handlers were shut down you know the unit still powered up you know we try toate any problem and Tom I'm sorry it's also it's not just AMD whose equipment is also getting ruined the town's equipment is and

132basically at our last meeting we just said we're not going to test it anymore it's until they figure out how to stop ruining everything for us so six or seven years it's all on maybe six or seven years we get reimbursed so to did I understand correctly that there's three positions open and this is for one or did I mishar that no we have three prayer educator positions open this is for the one most crucial while we um reassign some other their pair educat so do you still have two positions that need to be filled at this point we do so could we do you a do you have any idea of how we can we're looking at different options right now we posted a floating par professional in hopes of getting someone without a

133direct building assignment it's a model I used in a previous School District uh where you kind of assign them on a week by- week basis it depends on the applicant pool right now all stud are receiving their services it's just causing us to shift people between programs more often and one case shift an individual between buildings um so while we're functioning and covering the idea required Services we're not doing it in the most effective uh ways possible right now okay thanks thank you uh call the rooll Miss Bradley stain Mr Davis yes Miss Iker yes Mr haror yes Miss hubber yes Dr KRON yes M Lio yes Mr McDon yes Dr ol delay yes Mr Reid yes Miss schlank yes Miss Shuster yes motion carries thank you we move on to uh um policy uh

134here are uh five first reads I think here uh we had a great policy meeting yes got a lot done okay uh uh to all our board members first read is our first opportunity to hear about these um uh probably a good idea for you to uh look at them in depth and if there's any questions that come up at this meeting uh to examine those concerns and uh if you have any other additional questions get them to our chair or the superintendent and we can go from there because we're not actually voting on any of these today all right so yeah thank it's a good point to make um so the first policy um went through some heavy revisions and wa did I jump ahead yes I did sorry uh the first policy is

135a combination of C language and um as Dr buers let us know that was cleaned up heavily by The Amity lawyer and so she's comfortable with the language included in it and would prefer that we didn't deviate from it too much as it has been approved by the lawyer and we didn't really have any kind of contentious conversations around this policy at the me no we it actually it was driven by Title Nine we updated it um the first go through the policy committee didn't love the language it was very Title 9 heavy and kind of ignored all the other titles so I just asked our board's attorney to just draft us our own so she did model it off of C probably also Shipman and goodwi pulled the best together but it's a much

136better policy she also developed the regulation already so as soon as this is approved it all goes up and is is set and ready to go and that includes the paragraph about the use of the property to Boy Scouts yes of America which seemed a little randomly placed in there but is actually part of Statute yes so is title 36 something about patriotic societies like I I found that language little confusing as to what is it as a patriotic Society what exactly um so I don't know if it's patriotic per se but it's definitely connect yeah it's I it's just I know that the Boy Scouts have and which is now scouting America and the Girl Scouts have sort of this exclusive right of access to schools very it's a very Antiquated law but has

137stayed on the books so here it is it just seems odd to call those two out and just say and it has always been like that I mean for PA probably remembers this but yeah it's just that's just the way that the law is written right now okay um yep so we can move on to the 5131 next policy this policy went through heavy revisions and now includes some statutory changes which you will see noted this the policy with the red starting on page 78 78 this was uh a new statute is this D am I sorry am I I believe yeah is where we start CH so and this included um separated in and out of in and out of school suspensions and this language covered that yes yes so so the the the

138legislation just updated at the last legislative session to make some distinctions between in school suspension and out of school suspension that didn't previously exist so the policy now addresses those distinctions that are part of Statute I'm sorry what were the two in-house and in school and out of schools you Ju Just the history we we've looked at this uh many times over the last couple of years and we had it pretty much updated to our uh the way we liked it and then of course statute change so we have to make those changes so any anything you see in there is probably statutory and uh that's what's been added okay all right if there's nothing more to cover with that we can move on to the next policy sorry I'm just going through my notes

139Here page 93 I think oh yeah I'm actually going from my packet in the last meeting that's where I have on my notes but um um sorry go from your packet I am but now get the packets I know I got some new glasses and all right weing which one um this the teacher evaluation te evaluation yes yes okay so this actually was a total rewrite of the policy this came from cab and this took out this removed the timeline criteria for the evaluation so yes this so again there were statutory changes to the teacher evaluation process the biggest thing is it removed this concept of rating teachers um and change some language around how we have to use the um evaluation rubrics and so the whole process changed so we just scrapped the old

140policy which was very tied to the old process and put in a new policy Mr par and I actually worked on this one together since he's so connected to the teacher evaluation program um both of us are very happy with what we have here um and yeah we had a presentation uh done on the teacher evaluation plan so this reflects what was presented in that uh uh presentation and uh also we had some questions that I think were answered to the satisfaction of most of the board members about uh review doing teacher uh uh evaluations and uh uh what would be the problems that might come up or should there be considerations for additional support of the teachers and that's all into there yeah and moving on to bylaws of the board there was a

141in red we discussed the special meeting right y some of the parameters of that and that really was I think the first one is the officers 9120 and so that one very briefly um was is our attempt at revising it so that the annual meeting is not annual but is now by anyal so that way um in the odd years when we have new board members elected that's when we would elect new chairs and officers but in even years like this one when nobody has changed and everybody's already in their position we would maintain the same officers and chairs um I can say operationally and this is where I called Mr MCD out the last time um it helps because when I'm constantly having to shift who our Treasurer is and we're changing you know

142bank account statements and things like that at doing it every year just kind of scums up the works um I think it's also really good a lot of there's a lot of PD around being a board chair and if you had to change who your board chair was every year Not only would you lose all that PD but the new person coming on board would now have to do a whole bunch more PD to become board chair so I think it just makes good sense um now that we're all on the same election cycle between our three towns um can I would this would this take effect no because we will actually start the December meeting before we voted on this policy so we'll still have to do the annual meeting this year then again

143next year because it'll be an odd year in in any case I I don't think it would be able to be T take effect because technically we're all voted for a one-year term and you can't say suddenly one-year term is turning into a two-year term either way yeah uh but that explains the whole thing and a lot of school districts do do this also all right and bu for a spot no no but it's one mon thing to do it you know if we got it done it's one month for continuity sake it does make sense yeah okay and bylaw 93.5 meeting conduct I think this addresses a special meeting meeting yeah so please take a take a deep dive into these if you'd like to and email comments or questions before thank you thank

144you so much thank you policy committee good hard work detail committee stuff tonight we can't touch K okay uh Personnel report anything special uh so no um you have an enclosure um you can see that there's very little movement in action um I would like to thank Carla today um be for coming to the board meeting she spent six hours interviewing for our assistant superintendent position um so we are making progress and I do still anticipate presenting somebody to the board on November 25th um which will then kind of move everything else forward in a timely fashion just one candidate uh yes you'll receive just one candidate um the other thing that um Mr brentt didn't mention but did come up during Finance is we have posted for a full-time special education teacher for the

145remainder of this school year um to serve as a essentially a floating substitute special education teacher um we are finding we have so many absences in our special education department we um are unable to cover those absences um every time a special ed teacher is out we really are supposed to have a certified special ed teacher in place so some of our teachers are picking up extra sections which is great but that's also leads to teacher burnout because they're exhausted um it um if we don't have a special education teacher parents are entitled to to compensatory Services which are very expensive um so we put our heads together and just couldn't figure out any other solution uh knowing several long-term absences that we anticipate coming up and just kind of the the struggles we've been

146facing this year um so it is posted as a full-time position hoping that it would be enticing with benefits and um the protections of the teachers contract that somebody would like to join with us but we'll see um but it would it would only be for this school year um until we have a better sense of long-term absences for next year um all right uh your business and announcements is there anybody that has comments business announcements and uh we have our uh items for the next regular meeting due by November 29th and we have a meeting coming up on on so we have two me well we have Forum next week on the 18th and then the following week on the 25th is our budget presentation from the principals and Department um chairs um so

147that one's um we'll invite all of our AFC members I'll actually invite members of the boards of Finance from the towns um we'll flip the script and my team will be up front while you guys can be in the audience and um we'll just kind of sort of show where we are at the start of the budget process requests um and really open up the first opportunity to ask questions and see where the budget's going okay the word merch numbers going up it should be like a huge percentage increase I imine brid yes with with that with that uh we'll call for adjournment uh uh at 8:36 uh uh without uh anybody disagreeing uh adjourned at 836 had